Richmond Police holds community walk in Saint John’s Wood neighborhood

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — The Richmond Police Department is getting personal. On Tuesday, Aug. 21, leaders with the department held a community walk in an effort to spread the message about information and awareness.

On Tuesday afternoon, Richmond officers and other staff descended on the Saint John’s Wood neighborhood with pamphlets and other information. The goal of the community walk is to bring the people who serve the city face to face with the people who live in it.

Leaders say that it is important for them and other law enforcement to have a relationship with the community they serve before a potential disaster strikes.

“You’ve got to start somewhere. You got to start where you can. Being able to share information between back and forth I think is the biggest key for safety within our community,” said Lieutenant Warren Andorfer with the Third Precinct.

Lieutenant Andorfer led this month’s community walk in the Saint John’s Wood apartment complex. Officers from the third precinct and representatives from other city agencies walk around and meet with neighbors.

Every month, the department will pick a different community and take to the streets to let residents know what they are keeping an eye on and to find out what issues concern them.

“That interaction is the key,” said Lieutenant Andorfer. “And if you just stay behind your closed door and you don’t want to talk to the police, that’s really not helping anybody.”

According to a report released Tuesday by the Virginia State Police, violent crime across the state has increased. The number of reported violent crimes spiked from 16,894 in 2022 to 18,299 in 2023, demonstrating an 8.3% increase.

However, state police say growing even more are crimes against personal property reporting that motor vehicle thefts and attempted thefts increased 8% in 2023, compared to the year before with more than 15,000 vehicles being stolen and only about 9,000 recovered. The department says it’s a significant problem locally.

Marqese Watkins has been running his moving business in the Saint Johns Wood apartment complex for several years and says that he was happy to see the police in his community.

“It was good. It was good. I feel like it gave you a lot of information. They offered you a lot of information you probably didn’t know you needed, or you never heard of about the community. To see them reaching out to the community walking around and asking how you doing abasically checking on the community that you are in” Watkins said.

Brenda Barnett lives in the neighborhood with her granddaughters and says that things are typically quiet and safe, but she would still like to see more of what she saw today.

“I like this. I hope they come back, and you know, they stay checking the neighborhood. It’s quiet in this neighborhood, the only time you hear some noise is when the kids are out playing,” Barnett said.

During the community walk officers also gave out free steering walks and gun locks to anyone who needed them.

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